Monkey Man
2024 · Directed by Dev Patel
Original language: English
- action
- thriller
The story
Kid is an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
What it’s like
Neon-soaked and grimy, with the club scenes lit in hot reds, sickly greens and smeared blue, and the camera tight and shaky in the cramped fight pits so every blow lands close and wet. Handheld intimacy gives way to sweeping, crowded Mumbai nights, where rain-slick alleys, gaudy temple-hall gold and dim, smoky interiors make the city feel crowded and oppressive. The score is a thudding synth-and-drum pulse, cut through with traditional Indian percussion and ominous silence before each eruption. The vibe is raw, feverish and sour, with brooding stretches of isolation broken by bursts of brutal, kinetic action. Pacing is lean and relentless once the revenge engine starts, though the early chapters linger on quiet, humiliating grind. Its central figure moves from numb, self-punishing endurance toward something volcanic, and the emotional register stays hard and angry, with flickers of grief. Violence is frequent, graphic and bloody: heavy beatings, stabbings, gunfire and gore, plus scenes of torture and some sexual menace, landing as visceral and punishing rather than stylised. For viewers who want a serious, adrenaline-fuelled revenge story with dark, grounded texture and little gentleness.
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